Rhymes
In a little over a month after the death of Hugo Chavez, Venezuelans elected his former vice president and hand-picked successor Nicolás Maduro. This, as one might expect, was not without controversy (albeit a manufactured one).
Venezuelan opposition candidate Henrique Capriles is continuing to challenge the results of his presidential race against Nicolás Maduro, the chosen successor of late President Hugo Chávez. Maduro won 51 percent of the vote compared with 49 percent for Capriles. According to preliminary figures, the turnout of registered voters surpassed 78 percent.
On Monday, Venezuela’s Electoral Council certified Maduro’s victory, despite a call by Capriles for a recount. A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department had, unsurprisingly, supported a recount, calling it “an important, prudent and necessary step to ensure that all Venezuelans have confidence in these results.”
Capriles went on to say on Monday that “the fight here isn’t between people. The fight here is between the people versus an illegitimate government, a spurious president. We believe that we won the elections. The other electoral camp believes they won the elections, as well. Well, every one of us is within their rights. Every one of us has the right to count our votes. We have the conviction that we won the elections here.”
In spite of the objections of Capriles and the Obama administration, several Latin American nations have already congratulated Maduro on his victory, including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba and Nicaragua — Russia and China also have congratulated him.
The facts belie the accusations
The State Department said it was “difficult to understand” why the commission certified ruling party candidate Nicolas Maduro as the winner in the absence of a recount, which challenger Henrique Capriles is demanding. What is missing from that official State Department statement is that Capriles is calling for a “complete” recount of the votes that separate him and Maduro.
For the hypocrisy of such an assertion to be fully understood, one would have to rewind to the 2000 presidential election here in the U.S. where no complete recount took place.
Democracy was, essentially, taken out of the hands of the voters and left to the discretion of nine appointed individuals. One of the least-talked-about reforms of the Chávez administration was the establishment of an extremely secure electoral system. The Venezuelan system, which former president Jimmy Carter called the best in the world, is quite effective.
There are two records of every vote. A touch screen is pushed and gives an electronic record. And then an actual hard copy receipt goes in the ballot box. And all that needs to be done to establish accuracy and authenticity is to compare the two records. This, by the way, isn’t being done in many places across the United States.
And whereas the auditing of only 2 to 3 percent of the vote is usually deemed necessary to certify the legitimacy of an election, Venezuela audited 54 percent of its votes —- considered to be, if not the most, among the most stringent elections auditing processes in the world. So, the only reason there is to doubt the veracity of the Venezuelan election results is if you simply don’t like the outcome.
The duplicitous attempt at revising Chávez legacy
Although his policies were largely successful, Chávez’s governance was not without difficulty. Let’s address some of the very real problems of his government.
Crime: Venezuela suffers South America’s worst murder rate, 73 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2012, according to the non-governmental Venezuela Violence Observatory — 15 times the U.S. homicide rate. Also, according to the organization’s report, only 9 percent of homicides result in an arrest. Kidnapping for ransom has risen as well.
The crime rate is due, in part, to a miscalculation on the part of the Chávez administration. They believed that once poverty decreased, crime would decrease as well. Not taking into account that although poverty may be the chief driver of crime, over time criminality can become every bit as much cultural as it is economic. There wasn’t enough done to ensure that there was a sufficient police force and a decently functioning judicial system.
Devaluation and currency exchange rate: In Feb. 2013, Chávez announced an unexpected devaluation — it was the fifth devaluation since strict currency controls were introduced in 2003. Even critics said, at the time, that the exchange rate adjustment was necessary to correct increasing distortions in the economy; they believed it did not go far enough because of the over-valuing of Venezuelan currency. And yes, there is inflation (that is higher than that of their trading partners) which appreciated their real exchange rate which, in turn, made devaluation essential.
It was also predicted that there would be shortages of certain basic goods and that’s exactly what happened. This in turn created, within the Venezuelan populace, an uneasiness that can explain the unpredicted closeness of the recent presidential race. So there’s no denying there are legitimate concerns regarding Venezuela.
And although for the past 14 years, the vast majority of the media, especially the pro-neoliberal business press, has been predicting economic collapse in Venezuela, it hasn’t collapsed yet.
True, they’ve had two recessions. One was caused by an opposition oil strike in 2002 and 2003 — that certainly can’t be laid at the government’s feet. The other one was caused in 2009 and half of 2010 and was brought on by the world recession — courtesy, in no small part, by policies forwarded by Western powers that hated Chávez.
So, all this talk of Venezuela’s unsustainable economy is rather unsubstantiated. Unsustainable is when, as in 2006, there’s an $8 trillion housing bubble and any honest (and dare I say competent) economist and financial expert knew that it was going to burst. That may be the U.S. and Europe, but that’s not Venezuela.
Once again, the concerns of crime and inflation notwithstanding, as a result of Chávez’s reforms, poverty was reduced by 50 percent — extreme poverty by 70 percent. Millions of people gained access to free health care for the first time. Unemployment was 14-and-a-half percent when Chávez took office; it was 8 percent just last year. All this was done against the backdrop of U.S. interference and misinformation that included the 2002 coup.
Conclusion
As an individual who knows what it’s like to have the legitimacy of his presidency questioned, Obama’s actions are shameful. He continues to pursue a U.S. policy of arrogance and dismissiveness in regard to Latin American nations. This isn’t just about tone, but actual foreign policy strategy.
It was seen in June 2009 when Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was kidnapped at gunpoint and put on a plane to Costa Rica in a coup orchestrated, in part, by two generals trained in the United States.
The government that replaced him proved to be so brutal that in June 2011, 87 U.S. Congress members sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calling for the suspension of aid to the Honduran military and police until steps were taken to hold security forces accountable for human rights abuses.
Another example would be Paraguay. In a recent article by Natalia Viana of The Nation, detailed how USAID supported the parliamentary coup there in the form of a sham impeachment of President Lugo.
Make no mistake; regime change is still on the United State’s foreign policy menu even though the rhetoric is smoother. There were some who commented about the somber demeanor of Nicolás Maduro while celebrating his election night victory.
Maybe he was reflecting about the man whose death made the election he had just won necessary; maybe he was feeling the tug of the weight from the problems that he shared as vice president, that would now rest, even more, on his shoulders, or maybe he was thinking about the forces that sought to topple the Chávez presidency and undermine other governments in the region, and that would now be out for his head. Who knows?
One thing does seem certain, however; America’s current administration can’t or won’t see that by making Maduro’s legitimacy an open question, it only serves to make their policies toward Latin America in general and Venezuela more specifically, seem all the more questionable.